Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Franca, disappointed and hurt, goes to visit her grandmother in Sicily and writes a letter to Mimmo.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
The piazza where Mimmo and Franca perform is deserted, but everything changes once he starts singing a Tarantella. Later on, Mimmo takes Franca to one of his favorite spots.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
As Mimmo and Franca enjoy the beach and swimming in the clear water, he tells her about his childhood in the town they can see from where they are sitting.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
When they get to his hometown, there's one person Mimmo doesn't want to see and one person he does want to see. Later on, he talks to Franca about how frustrated he is about his career.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Mimmo goes to Paris and hears some great music, but doesn't have much success with his songs. That leaves him little choice but to go to Canada. It's cold there! He keeps in touch with Franca during his travels.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
The episode closes with one of Domenico Modugno's most famous songs, Tu si' 'na cosa grande (you are something great to me), as Mimmo muses about the present and the future.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
The French government is privileged to have two of Rome's most beautiful properties: Palazzo Farnese, which they rent for a nominal fee and use as their embassy, and Villa Medici, which is the home of the French Academy, and was procured by Napoleon. The narrator speaks of how the land on which Villa Medici was built was highly appreciated by the ancient Romans.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
The segment focuses on the reasons behind the founding of the French Academy by Louis XIV
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
A tour of Villa Medici's reception and private rooms. Ferdinando de' Medici hired the architect and sculptor Bartolomeo Ammannati to expand the villa, as well as other renowned Florentines artists to create fresco cycles exalting his life. We catch a glimpse of his frescoed south-facing apartment, which would have been used in the colder months, while the north-side suite was for warmer periods.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
We get a look at the plaster casts of Roman and Greek statues in the French Academy's storage rooms, sculptures such as the Venus de Milo. Fellows have made use of these casts to draw inspiration for their own works.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
The segment focuses on Messalina, wife of the Emperor Claudius, who owned a villa on the site of Villa Medici. We catch a glimpse of tunnels and rooms beneath the villa, which were used by Ferdinando de' Medici to imprison Asian slaves when they weren't at work on a garden meant to evoke Mount Parnassus.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
We visit the French Academy's gallery devoted to plaster casts of antique sculptures and the large park, which was once used by Ferdinando de' Medici for hunting.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
The segment concentrates on two richly frescoed rooms that are set apart from the villa. Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici used these secluded rooms for trysts.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Éric de Chassey, Director of the French Academy, details the mission of the institution.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
What does it mean to be a European? Is the variety of languages in Europe an obstacle to actual unification? Umberto Eco explores these questions and offers some interesting insight.
Difficulty: Advanced
Italy
Donatella Versace, go-to designer for movie stars and rock stars, talks about her love of color, designing the various Versace collections, and the legacy of her brother.
Difficulty: Advanced
Italy Neapolitan
Mario Talarico is a Neapolitan master umbrella maker. He and his finely crafted products have been featured in newspapers around the world.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy Lucano
Serena takes you to a music store in Rome. The first instrument she shows us is the piano.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy Lucano
Serena takes us to another part of the music store. This time she shows us the percussion instruments.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy Lucano
Serena finishes showing us the music store by guiding us through the guitar section, as well as the section dedicated to the instruments of the orchestra. She closes by a quick visit to the sheet music department.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Journalist Annalena Benini introduces us to different writers from different places in Italy, beginning with Rome, where she interviews Chiara Gamberale, a novelist.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Chiara Gamberale talks about how and where she writes, and how her life has changed now that she has a little girl.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Chiara tells about how she realized she knew how to read, which then led her to begin writing. She wrote her first "novel" in second grade. Where she grew up, on the outskirts of Rome, influence her writing to a significant degree.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Annalena meets up with Paolo Giordano who talks about the trauma of moving from Turin to Rome. Giordano's first novel, La solitudine dei numeri primi (the solitude of prime numbers) from 2008 was made into a popular film of the same name in 2010.
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